If you anticipate making a change that might affect existing accrued vacation, you will have to determine if the effect will reduce any person’s leave bank. If the answer to that question is yes, then you need to consult with your attorney to be sure that you are not breaking state law, Hagan says.

Is Your Leave Plan Subject to a CBA?

If your employees are subject to a Collective Bargaining Agreement, then compliance with the CBA will be necessary to avoid labor claims or breach of contract liability.

How Solid is Your Handbook?

One, Is the handbook open to interpretation as a contract? Employers generally want to avoid this, because we always want to keep our employees at will unless they are contract employees or independent contractors.

However, if you think your handbook might be viewed as a contract, then you may have to abide by its provisions.

Two, has the company reserved the right to unilaterally change policies? If your handbook does not meet the best practices of avoiding contractual entanglement by including a clause reserving your sole right to interpret and modify its policies, you need to get with your HR attorney. With his or her help, you can update your handbook to reduce the potential for liability stemming from any benefit changes you might make.

Compensation.BLR.com, now thoroughly revamped with easier navigation and more complete compensation information, will tell you what’s being paid right in your state—or even metropolitan area—for hundreds of jobs. Try it at no cost and get a complimentary special report. Read more.

Is Your Leave Plan ERISA Qualified?

There are a few employers out there that have attempted to construct vacation plans that are exempt from state laws, says Hagan. They try to get their vacation plans to fall under the federal Employee Retirement Income Security (ERISA) law, which by its nature trumps all state laws on vacation and all state laws in general.

ERISA provides that the term “employee welfare benefit plan” applies to any plan, fund, or program established or maintained by an employer for the purpose of providing benefits in the events of sickness, accident, disability, death, or vacation benefits.

Of course, if that were universally true, every employer in the United States offering vacation would have to fill out form 5500 for ERISA compliance.
However, generally, regulations specifically categorize the employer practice of paying sick leave or vacation benefits out of its general assets as a payroll practice and not a welfare plan under ERISA.

So, although it is possible to construct leave plans such as a vacation plan that would be governed by ERISA, and thus preemptive of state law, this is a very, very tricky area and you will want to consol with an ERISA lawyer and make sure that you set this up correctly.

PTO and employee leave, just one of the many issues comp and benefits managers must deal with. There’s no shortage of challenges, is there? “Maintain internal equity and external competitiveness and control turnover, but still meet management’s demands for lowered costs.” Heard that one before? Many of the professionals we serve find helpful answers to all their compensation questions at Compensation.BLR.com, BLR’s comprehensive compensation website.

And there’s great news: The site has just been revamped in two important ways. First, compliance focus information has been updated to include the latest on COBRA, Lilly Ledbetter, and FMLA. Second, user features are enhanced to make the site even quicker to respond to your particular needs:

Topics Navigator—Lets you drill down by topical areas to get to the right data fast.

Customizable Homepage—Can be configured to display whatever content you want to see most often.

Menu Navigation—Displays all of the main content areas and tools that you need in a simple, easy format.

Quick Links—Enables you to quickly navigate to all the new and updated content areas.

The services provided by this unique tool include:

Localized Salary Finder. Based on reliable research among thousands of employers, here are pay scales (including 25th, 50th, 75th, and 90th percentiles) for hundreds of commonly held jobs, from line worker to president of the company. The data are customized for your state and metro area, your industry, and your company size, so you can base your salaries on what’s offered in your specific market, not nationally.

Try BLR’s all-in-one compensation website, Compensation.BLR.com, and get a complimentary special report, Top 100 FLSA Overtime Q&As, no matter what you decide. Find out more.

State and Federal Wage-Hour and Other Legal Advice. Plain-English explanations of wage-hour and other compensation and benefits-related law at both federal and state levels. “State” means the laws of your state because the site is customized to your use. (Other states can be added at a modest extra charge.)

Job Descriptions. The website provides them by the hundreds, already written, legally reviewed, and compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) mandate that essential job functions be separated from those less critical. All descriptions carry employment grade levels to current norms—another huge time-saver.

Merit Increase, Salary, and Benefits Surveys. The service includes the results of three surveys a year. Results for exempt and nonexempt employees are reported separately.

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Preparing for and adapting to changes in the workplace is a crucial element to any HR professional’s job. What changes are most likely to affect HR in both the short and long-term future that you should be thinking about and preparing for now?

In this audio slideshow, we present 10 current workplace trends impacting HR. We also take a closer look at the unique challenges facing the solo HR practitioner.